SYDNEY, Australia — A young woman became so afraid of her Tinder date that she climbed from a 14th floor balcony to escape him, plunging to her death, an Australian court has heard.

Gable Tostee, who is accused of killing 26-year-old Warriena Wright during a date arranged via the popular app, was recorded threatening to “chuck her” from his balcony shortly before she fell to her death.

Handout/ Queesland PoliceWarriena Wright in an undated handout photo. She fell to her death from a Sydney balcony after a Tinder date went awry. Her date is charged with murder in her death.

A court in Australia heard that Tostee, 30, threatened and strangled Wright, a New Zealand tourist, after they met for the first time and went back to his apartment. Ms Wright allegedly fled to the balcony in fear and was attempting to escape by climbing down when she fell.

In a disturbing recording of the encounter that was found on Tostee’s phone, he could be heard saying: “You’re lucky I haven’t chucked you off my balcony you God damn psycho bitch. You’re not going to collect any belongings, you’re just going to walk out.”

The pair made contact six days earlier on the dating app and arranged to meet at a surf shop in a nightclub district near Tostee’s apartment in Surfers Paradise, a beachside resort in Queensland. They met in the evening of February 7, 2014, and bought beer before returning to Tostee’s apartment, where they were recorded talking about God, ninjas and the movie Forrest Gump.

Glen Cash, the prosecutor, told the Supreme Court in Brisbane that the pair drank and were intimate before an altercation occurred early on the Friday morning.

During the audio recording played to the court,Wright could be heard asking to leave several times but the pair continued to drink and talk.

At one point, she told him: “Are you going to f–ing untie me because I will f–ing destroy your jaw.”

You’re not going to collect any belongings, you’re just going to walk out. If you try to pull anything I’ll knock you out, I’ll knock you the f– out. Do you understand?

He is heard to say: “I should have never given you so much to drink… You’re not going to collect any belongings, you’re just going to walk out. If you try to pull anything I’ll knock you out, I’ll knock you the f– out. Do you understand?”

Cash said the prosecution was not alleging Tostee had thrown or pushed Wright but that he threatened her and left her with no choice but to try to escape by climbing down from the locked balcony.

The case has attracted heavy media coverage in Australia and prompted police warnings to users of the dating app to be careful when arranging meetings with strangers.

Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty ImagesTourists spend their evening at Sydney Houbour on September 11. A woman fell to her death from a 14th-floor balcony in the city after a bad Tinder date.

Tostee has pleaded not guilty and denied strangling Wright, insisting that he restrained her in self-defence. His lawyer Saul Holt QC claimed that Wright, who was visiting Australia on a two week holiday, became violent and started throwing decorative rocks at him and hit him with a clamp from a telescope.

“What happened in this case is nothing like murder or manslaughter, it doesn’t fit,” Mr Holt said. “She is outside, he is inside and he has caused a locked door to be between the two of them.”

Gabriele Collyer-Wiedner, a retiree who lived in the apartment below Tostee’s, said she was woken by the sound of banging furniture at 2 a.m.

Already reeling from the death of a classmate who was hit by a bus, students at a Sydney, N.S. high school recently received more shocking news: Another classmate had been criminally charged in the death.

For some, the charge of criminal negligence causing death is bewildering because the incident was initially reported as a tragic case of roughhousing among teens gone horribly awry.

Police won’t go into detail about what led to the charge, but, on its surface, the case appears to serve as a cautionary tale about how individuals may not always escape culpability when deaths occur from simple horseplay.

“Merely describing the activity as playful doesn’t settle the issue,” says Archie Kaiser, a law professor at Dalhousie University.

Towering snowbanks lined the street outside Sydney Academy on the afternoon of Feb. 11, as students waited for school buses to take them home.

Somehow, Christopher Chafe, a well-liked 18-year-old student with a passion for riding all-terrain vehicles and watching NASCAR races, landed in the path of one of those buses and was run over.

Initial reports suggested the death was the result of a group of students horsing around. “That’s what it seems to be, students initially carrying on back and forth with one another,” Ken O’Neill, a staff sergeant with the Cape Breton Regional Police, told the Chronicle Herald in the immediate aftermath.

“Coming out of the gate on this, initially, it looks like we may have a tragic accident.”

Steve Wadden/The Chronicle HeraldCape Breton Regional Police work the scene of a fatal pedestrian collision involving a school bus and a student at Sydney Academy high school in Sydney, Nova Scotia, on Feb. 11.

One week later, as Mr. Chafe was remembered at a memorial service for his love of hunting partridge and rabbits and for his obsession with soda or “Jesus juice,” friends continued to chalk up the death to a tragic accident, the Chronicle Herald reported.

But then two days later, police announced that they had charged a 15-year-old student from the same school with criminal negligence causing death. According to documents filed in provincial court, police believe Mr. Chafe was pushed into the path of the bus, leading to his death.

Police spokeswoman Desiree Vassallo was not able to elaborate Tuesday on what investigators learned, other than to say that “through subsequent investigation, which did include witness statements, police eventually laid a charge [of criminal negligence].”

Such a charge is filed when police believe a “person’s actions or inactions caused the death of another person,” she said.

Prof. Kaiser said unlike other criminal charges, where the Crown must prove that an accused person knew what he was doing was reckless or that he was willfully blind to the consequences, a charge of criminal negligence has a different threshold.

“We’re not concerned with what you actually thought, so much as what you should have thought if you had been somebody who was proceeding reasonably,” he said.

“The question is: How would a reasonable person have behaved in those circumstances? Did the accused behave in a manner that was a marked and substantial departure from the standard of that reasonable person?“

‘The question is: How would a reasonable person have behaved in those circumstances?’

A charge of criminal negligence causing death is very similar to manslaughter and “tends to be laid in cases where it is accepted that everything was accidental,” such as in driving collisions, said Jonathan Dawe, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer.

In addition to looking at the accused’s behaviour, police in the Nova Scotia case may also have considered the setting where the death took place — reportedly near a tall, icy snowbank, where the risks were elevated, Mr. Dawe said.

A defence lawyer might try to argue that the student’s behaviour amounted to carelessness but not to the extent that it was a marked departure from how a reasonable person would have acted under the same circumstances, the experts said.

Neither the families of Mr. Chafe nor the accused, who cannot be named, could be reached for comment on Tuesday. But some students at the school have questioned why charges needed to be laid.

“It was an accident and he has to live with it, but why charge him? It’s ridiculous,” one student told CTV News.

Grade 11 student Colin Power told CBC News that “punishing him more for what he’s already feeling probably doesn’t help the situation.”

Meanwhile, there has been an outpouring of condolences on social media for Mr. Chafe’s parents, Noel Chafe and Christina Burneau, his sister, Susanna, and other family members.

“School will never be the same without you,” a friend wrote on an online memorial site. “It makes me cry every time I think of you. … It’s gonna be the hardest thing in my life walking up and down the halls at [Sydney Academy] and knowing my best friend isn’t here.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/n-s-teens-death-was-considered-a-tragic-accident-but-now-his-classmate-faces-criminal-charges/feed1stdChristopher-ChafeSteve Wadden/The Chronicle HeraldFormer University of Ottawa student was taken hostage in Sydney siege and shot in the leghttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/former-university-of-ottawa-student-was-taken-hostage-in-sydney-siege-and-shot-in-the-leg
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/former-university-of-ottawa-student-was-taken-hostage-in-sydney-siege-and-shot-in-the-leg#respondWed, 17 Dec 2014 17:22:55 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=556373

Marcia Mikhael, a one-time University of Ottawa student who now lives in Australia, underwent an operation Tuesday after being shot in the leg during a hostage taking by a self-proclaimed Muslim sheikh the previous day.

Mikhael, who is in her 40s, was among the 17 people who were held at gunpoint by Iranian-born Man Haron Monis after he stormed into a Sydney café early Monday.

Two hostages — Katrina Dawson, 38, and Tori Johnson, the 34-year-old café manager — were killed before police charged in and ended the 16-hour siege at the Lindt Chocolate Café in Sydney’s central business district. Mikhael was shot in the lower leg during the incident.

Back in Ottawa, relatives who’d heard from family members in Australia that Mikhael was among the hostages spent an anxious night. She lives in Sydney, where she works as a project manager for an Australian financial institution, Westpac, and owns a fitness salon, Fitness 4 Life.

<p><img src="http://www.nationalpost.com/2702384.bin&quot; align="top" width="470" alt="" /> </p>
<p><img src="http://www.nationalpost.com/2702381.bin&quot; align="left" hspace="10" width="230" alt="" /></p>
<p><i>[Photos: Above, designer Dace Moore at her spring 2010 preview at Vancouver's Opus Hotel in November. Credit: Pelman Photography 2009; Left, customer snapshots wearing Dace dresses, clockwise from left, Parker dress, Gillian dress, Maisie dress. Credit: handouts] </i><br /></p>
<p><i>Clean lines, sophisticated femininity, and local design and construction, Vancouver's <a href="http://www.dace.ca/&quot; target="_blank">Dace </a>line
has quite a following in Canada and south of the border since its
launch in 2002. The woman behind the label, designer Dace Moore, blogs
about her inspirations for her spring collection and, today in her final blog for us, she talks about her broad, happy customer base.</i></p>
<p><b>Dace Moore for National Post's Retail Therapy </b></p>
<p>People always ask me what challenges I face being a designer. I think long and hard, and I realize that I don’t think that I come across any challenges designing. I love designing for our Dace customers. If I could spend all day just designing different things for them, I would. The challenges that I come across deal with running my own company. Being in charge and the stress of running my own business has its hurdles. The good thing is, I’m constantly learning. I guess I could say that I learn something new about running the company everyday.<br /><!--more--><br />The Dace brand has been around since 2001. Spring 2011 will mark our 10th year anniversary. I never thought that I’d be sitting here and telling you that I have been doing this for ten years. All of this, of course, has to do with thanks to you, my customers. <br /> <br />Our target customer varies, so I don’t really think that I design for any particular person, but more so a “group” of people. We have stores that cater to urban moms, stores that have an older clientele and stores that sell to people like me. That is one of the things I like about how the brand has evolved — our target customer has become very broad. I get inspired to design easily by the fabrics that we use, which I usually purchase from France, Italy and Japan. But I don’t really design with a particular girl in mind. I do make sure to have variety in the collection so that there is something for everyone. And I don’t think we’ll ever change this — it’s what makes Dace “Dace.”<br /><br />So thank <i>you</i>! Thank you for emailing us and asking where you can buy Dace. Thank you for asking the stores when the next Dace shipment comes in. Thank you for wearing Dace on your first date, your wedding day, your job interview. Thank you for making designing for you fun. Thank you for feeling beautiful in Dace. And thank you for your continued support.</p>
<p><a href="http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/theampersand/archive/2010/03/17/dace-moore.aspx&quot; target="_blank">Dace Moore on closet essentials </a><br /></p>
<p><a href="http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/theampersand/archive/2010/03/11/fashion-guest-blogger-dace-moore-spring-collection-frocked-for-paris-romance.aspx&quot; target="_blank">Dace Moore spring collection frocked for Paris romance </a></p>
<p> </p>
<br />
<p> </p>
<img src="http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/aggbug.aspx?PostID=410049&quot; width="1" height="1"><p><img src="http://www.nationalpost.com/2702384.bin&quot; align="top" width="470" alt="" /> </p>
<p><img src="http://www.nationalpost.com/2702381.bin&quot; align="left" hspace="10" width="230" alt="" /></p>
<p><i>[Photos: Above, designer Dace Moore at her spring 2010 preview at Vancouver's Opus Hotel in November. Credit: Pelman Photography 2009; Left, customer snapshots wearing Dace dresses, clockwise from left, Parker dress, Gillian dress, Maisie dress. Credit: handouts] </i><br /></p>
<p><i>Clean lines, sophisticated femininity, and local design and construction, Vancouver's <a href="http://www.dace.ca/&quot; >Dace </a>line
has quite a following in Canada and south of the border since its
launch in 2002. The woman behind the label, designer Dace Moore, blogs
about her inspirations for her spring collection and, today in her final blog for us, she talks about her broad, happy customer base.</i></p>
<p><b>Dace Moore for National Post's Retail Therapy </b></p>
<p>People always ask me what challenges I face being a designer. I think long and hard, and I realize that I don’t think that I come across any challenges designing. I love designing for our Dace customers. If I could spend all day just designing different things for them, I would. The challenges that I come across deal with running my own company. Being in charge and the stress of running my own business has its hurdles. The good thing is, I’m constantly learning. I guess I could say that I learn something new about running the company everyday.<br /><!--more--><br />The Dace brand has been around since 2001. Spring 2011 will mark our 10th year anniversary. I never thought that I’d be sitting here and telling you that I have been doing this for ten years. All of this, of course, has to do with thanks to you, my customers. <br /> <br />Our target customer varies, so I don’t really think that I design for any particular person, but more so a “group” of people. We have stores that cater to urban moms, stores that have an older clientele and stores that sell to people like me. That is one of the things I like about how the brand has evolved — our target customer has become very broad. I get inspired to design easily by the fabrics that we use, which I usually purchase from France, Italy and Japan. But I don’t really design with a particular girl in mind. I do make sure to have variety in the collection so that there is something for everyone. And I don’t think we’ll ever change this — it’s what makes Dace “Dace.”<br /><br />So thank <i>you</i>! Thank you for emailing us and asking where you can buy Dace. Thank you for asking the stores when the next Dace shipment comes in. Thank you for wearing Dace on your first date, your wedding day, your job interview. Thank you for making designing for you fun. Thank you for feeling beautiful in Dace. And thank you for your continued support.</p>
<p><a href="http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/theampersand/archive/2010/03/17/dace-moore.aspx&quot; >Dace Moore on closet essentials </a><br /></p>
<p><a href="http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/theampersand/archive/2010/03/11/fashion-guest-blogger-dace-moore-spring-collection-frocked-for-paris-romance.aspx&quot; >Dace Moore spring collection frocked for Paris romance </a></p>
<p> </p>
<br />
<p> </p>
<img src="http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/aggbug.aspx?PostID=410049&quot; width="1" height="1">

Relatives were more effusive. “No one can ever hold down a Mikhael,” Chad Mikhael said on his Facebook page. “Marcia Mikhael you are strong, determined and we are so proud of you. You have an army of support along side you. We love you!”

Antionette Mikhael thanked those who had been so supportive. “Thank you God for this blessing … Marcia Mikhael is out and in the arms of people who love her … Thank you all your incredible support, continuous messages and well-needed prayers!”

Monis, who styled himself as a Muslim cleric, received political asylum in Australia in 1996, and gradually acquired an extensive criminal record in that country. At the time of the hostage-taking he was on bail while awaiting trial on a charge of being an accessory to the murder of his former wife and was facing more than 40 sexual and indecent assault charges.

He had also been convicted of sending offensive letters to the families of deceased Australian soldiers.

SYDNEY, Australia — The cafe manager who launched himself at the gunman holding 17 people hostage in Sydney was remembered as a hero Tuesday, as full details emerged of how the drama came to a bloody end.

Tori Johnson was one of two hostages who died in the Lindt cafe on Monday night at the end of the siege that gripped Australia and beyond.

Events had not been going to plan for the gunman, Man Haron Monis. Several of his hostages had already escaped from the cafe. His demands to be given an ISIS flag — he had brought the wrong one — had not been answered. The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, would not telephone him. Radio stations refused to broadcast his message. Sixteen hours into the siege, he was tiring.

Mr. Johnson saw his opportunity and lunged for Monis’s gun. In the hazy half-minute that followed, the 34-year-old cafe manager tried to wrestle with Mr. Monis for the weapon and three shots were fired.

HandoutSydney lawyer Katrina Dawson has been killed during the siege at the Lindt Chocolat Cafe in Martin Place.

A police sniper outside yelled “Window two, hostage down” — the signal for tactical police to storm inside. They burst through, firing heavily and throwing stun grenades. When the gunfire died, the screams of the injured could be heard.

Monis had been shot and killed. But there were two other fatalities.

Mr. Johnson had been killed, as had Katrina Dawson, a 38-year-old barrister and mother of three. She died shielding her close friend Julie Taylor, 35, an Oxford graduate and fellow barrister. Three other hostages were injured and a policeman was wounded by a bullet that grazed his face.

Yesterday, those who knew Mr. Johnson and Ms. Dawson paid tribute to their sacrifice.

Mr. Johnson’s father Ken, an artist, and mother, Rowen, said: “We are so proud of our beautiful boy Tori, gone from this Earth but forever in our memories as the most amazing life partner, son and brother we could ever wish for.”

Mr. Johnson’s long-term partner, Thomas Zinn, was being comforted at the couple’s home in the suburb of Redfern.

“Tori was a great guy, a good guy to be around,” said Tony Manno, who had worked with him at another restaurant.

And Ms. Dawson was remembered as a heroine and friendly, warm colleague.

“She was a terrific barrister, she had first class legal skills, and more importantly she was a wonderful person,” said Jeremy Stoljar QC, who worked in the same chambers. “She was a very funny, loving person, very popular, very caring. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

Questions were being asked Tuesday over why police went into the cafe so strongly. But the authorities insisted that they only rushed in after the first shots were fired and that their actions had prevented further loss of life.

“Gunshots were heard — then police moved to an emergency action plan,” said Andrew Scipione, the New South Wales state police commissioner.

“They believed that if they didn’t move then there would be many more lives lost.”

Monis was behaving increasingly erratically — and was enraged when five hostages escaped at 4:35 p.m. on Monday.

He ordered that the youngest of his captives, 19-year-old Jarrod Hoffman, from Bondi, call a radio station and a newspaper to relay his demands: a direct line to Mr. Abbott and the flag delivered to the cafe.

He added: “I have had a shotgun put at my head. Yes, we do need help, but that will only happen if demands are met.”

Monis’s pleas were ignored. He tried again, ordering Selina Win Pe, another hostage, to film a message with the same requests — for the flag, the line to the prime minister, and for a message to accomplices to be posted on YouTube.

“We have three specific requests and none of these have been met,” she said. The video was posted but swiftly taken down.

Joosep Martinson/Getty ImagesCondolence messages are written on the pavement for victims of the siege, Dec. 17, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

Police investigations into the raid’s violent end are continuing — but there are also growing questions about how the fanatical gunman with a criminal past was at large.

Mr. Abbott admitted that Monis was “well known” to intelligence agencies but revealed that he was not on a terrorism watch list. Monis was on bail for allegedly being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife and was facing separate charges of sexual assault.

“How can someone who has had such a long and checkered history not be on the appropriate watch lists and how can someone like that be entirely at large in the community?” Mr. Abbott asked. “These are questions that we need to look at carefully and calmly and methodically.”

Police Tuesday began to investigate the possible involvement of Amirah Droudis, who has been charged over the alleged murder of Monis’s former wife and was apparently Monis’s girlfriend and long-term partner-in-crime.

Related

Officers raided their home in south-west Sydney and questioned Ms. Droudis for several hours. She has been described as a Greek-Australian who converted to Islam, although this has not been confirmed. Like Monis, she was well known to police for a long history of criminal charges.

The pair allegedly acted together last year to kill Monis’s ex-wife, who was stabbed to death and then burnt in Sydney before her body was dumped in a stairwell. Ms. Droudis, 35, was charged with the murder.

They also wrote a series of offensive letters between 2007 and 2009 to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

She has also been named as the woman in a series of strange online videos made by Monis several years ago.

“I regret to say I am a terrorist,” she said in one, explaining that she defined terrorism as sinning under Islamic law.

The Daily Telegraph

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/sydney-cafe-manager-was-killed-after-he-grabbed-hostage-takers-shotgun-an-act-that-helped-end-siege/feed6stdTori-JohnsonHandoutSydney-siegeJoosep Martinson/Getty ImagesSydney siege hostages recorded desperate pleas on video that is now being used as ISIS propagandahttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/sydney-siege-hostages-recorded-desperate-pleas-on-video-that-is-now-being-used-as-isis-propaganda
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/sydney-siege-hostages-recorded-desperate-pleas-on-video-that-is-now-being-used-as-isis-propaganda#commentsTue, 16 Dec 2014 16:50:30 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=555773

The radical gunman in Sydney, Australia, had four distraught female hostages record video pleas inside the besieged café urging the Australian government to meet his demands. The videos were then uploaded to the Internet during the siege.

The videos not only capture some of the strange drama and fear behind the closed doors of the café during the 16 hour standoff, but makes it clear that the gunman, Man Haron Monis, considered himself to be a soldier of ISIS, the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq & Al-Sham.

“I’m one of the many hostages at the Lindt café here in Martin Place. We had three specific requests and none of those have been met,” begins one hostage who identifies herself as Celine Winpe.

She said the demands by “the brother” are to give him a flag of ISIS, in return for the release of one hostage.

He also wanted the media to say that the hostage taking over the weekend was “an attack on Australia by the Islamic State.”

His third demand was for Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minister, to have a public phone call with him “on a live feed,” in return for the release of five hostages.

“Most importantly,” Ms. Winpe says on the video, “there are three bombs around George Street, Martin Place, and also at [inaudible]. In order for those not to be ignited, we need these three things to be met as soon as possible. Please help us.”

The hostages express increasing frustration that authorities had not met the gunman’s demands.

“We don’t understand why these demands haven’t been met yet. They are not unreasonable. He is only asking for a flag and a phone call and that’s it,” said another hostage.

A third echoes that message, saying: “We don’t understand why these demands haven’t been met yet. They are not unreasonable. He is only asking for a flag and a phone call and that’s it.”

The last video message from a hostage adds: “Our ISIS brother has been very good to us. He’s helped us, given us water, and let us go to the bathroom and have my medication.”

The videos have been captured and curated and are now being used by a pro-Islamic State jihadi group as a propaganda message, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which has tracked a video production using the hostage drama and translated the Arabic titling in it.

The short videos — seemingly recorded by another hostage as yet another of the 17 hostages, this one a male, held up a black flag emblazoned with the Arabic shahādah — refer to the gunman, Man Haron Monis, as “the brother,” throughout.

The video production, running just over three minutes, is by Al-Minhaj Media Foundation, a pro-Islamic State jihadi media group, according SITE, which tracks jihadi groups.

SITE says the video was uploaded on YouTube on December 15, 2014, and promted on Twitter and in online jihadi forums. It appears that Monis uploaded the four video clips of the hostage onto YouTube during the seige.

Monis had previously shown he has both reasonable online savvy and a showman’s flair.

He grasped, at least by 2007, the power of the Internet to spread his views without relying on the media.

In an early iteration of his website, archived on Dec. 7, 2007, and accessed by the National Post, he calls himself “Sheikh Haron, Australian Muslim Cleric” and quotes the Quran from where he drew his name Haron. On it, he declares the Australian government should be charged “for being reckless to terrorism.”

YoutubeMan Haron Monis is shown in a YouTube video frame grab.

Even at that time he spoke in militant terms, although English spelling and grammar were not his strength: “Sheik Haron is just a small soldier. Maybe he even doesn’t deserve to be a soldier. Sheikh Haron hopes to be accepted by Allah as a soldier.”

In the last iteration of his website, archived on the weekend as the news of his hostage drama broke, he continued his message against the war against Islamic terrorism.

“This is an evidence for the terrorism of America and its allies including Australia. The result of their airstrikes,” he wrote above a photograph of dead children.

Dated the day he walked into the café, his website says:

“Islam is the religion of peace, that’s why Muslims fight against the oppression and terrorism of USA and its allies including UK and Australia. If we stay silent towards the criminals we cannot have a peaceful society. The more you fight with crime, the more peaceful you are. Islam wants peace on the Earth, that’s why Muslims want to stop terrorism of America and its allies.”

Dear Muslims in Australia, may God bless you that you have chosen "Team Islam". As I have advised earlier please... fb.me/4AGUFad0D

He also maintained Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts, each in the name of Sheikh Haron. Until he was linked to the Sydney attack, they attracted little interest from the public.

Through social media he pushed religious messages, graphics and videos. He also used them to air his personal grievances with the justice system, including posting a photograph of him holding up a sign saying he was tortured while he was in prison.

The Facebook and website account were suspended shortly after his identity as the hostage-taking gunman became known. His Twitter and YouTube channel remain accessible, although not updated.

Monis was killed during a police raid on the café. Two hostages also died and others wounded.

On Monday, heavily armed police officers stormed a upscale cafe in the heart of Sydney’s financial district. Inside, 17 people had been taken hostage by a man identified as Man Haron Monis, a self-styled Islamic cleric and a man alleged to have committed previous violent acts. According to local news reports, the police went in after escaping hostages reported that another hostage, still inside, had been killed. Monis was killed by police as they entered the cafe. Tragically, two hostages were also killed, though the exact timing and circumstances of their deaths remains unknown.

This was, of course, a dark day for our friends and allies in Australia. Authorities there, who believe Monis was an Islamic State sympathizer, have deemed this a terror attack, but insist that Monis was acting alone. Police also urged residents in Sydney to get back to their normal routines as quickly as possible. This is the right response in the face of such horror.

Australians have also responded in another important way. Even before police brought the standoff to its sad end, ordinary citizens took to social media to assure Muslim Australians that they had no reason to fear a public backlash. The grassroots movement quickly coalesced into the “I’ll ride with you” campaign: Australians of all backgrounds and faiths assured Muslim citizens who ride public transit to not fear wearing religious attire. Someone would ride with them and keep them company.

A small thing, perhaps, but an important one. No one has easy answers to the problem of Islamist extremism and lone-wolf terrorism. But little things — like getting back to normal and looking out for a fellow citizen riding next to you on the bus — are a good way to show the world that Australia remains the great and free nation it is.

On Sunday night, around 8 o’clock, I saw via Twitter that a hostage crisis was unfolding in Sydney, Australia. A man with a gun had gone into a high-end cafe in the city’s financial district and taken an unknown number of hostages. A news camera that had happened to be close to the scene captured dramatic footage of hostages lined up against the windows of a cafe, holding up a black flag with Arabic writing (initial reports wrongly claimed that it was an ISIS flag). Later footage from the scene showed Australian tactical police units surrounding the cafe, with officers wearing body armour, combat helmets and carrying assault rifles.

And then, at least on Canadian television, the coverage … ended. CNN cut away, too. You could still follow the news out of Sydney live by accessing the online feeds of local television stations, but here in North America, at least, the news networks promised to keep viewers posted, and resumed planned coverage.

I think this is a very good thing indeed, and I hope it was a deliberate editorial choice. If it wasn’t, it should have been, this time and going forward.

The reason I’m skeptical cutting away from live coverage from Sydney was a deliberate decision by senior news editors is simply rooted in timing. The hostage crisis began on a late Sunday evening in the Eastern time zone, which is when news organization manpower is most scarce. Add in the fact that December is always a crunch month as staff take vacations and I could easily see harried night-shift editors and producers making the call to only do breaking news coverage if truly warranted. Endless video of a cop standing around with a rifle didn’t count.

But I’m feeling optimistic, and therefore choose to believe that resuming normal coverage was a carefully considered decision, not just a workplace necessity.

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Don’t believe for a moment that I’m arguing that hostage crisis in Sydney wasn’t news. It absolutely was, and is news that Canadians were probably particularly interested in. The Sydney attacker, identified as Man Haron Monis, is reported to be a self-styled Muslim cleric with a long history of violence, and who Australian authorities certainly seemed to consider an anti-Western Islamic extremist. His apparent lone-wolf attack is certainly a reminder of the two attacks in Canada this past October, in with Canadian soldiers Patrice Vincent and Nathan Cirillo were killed.

So news, absolutely. But news that could be reported responsibly without going full “infotainment” on us, with special breaking news music and flashy graphics. When several hostages escaped the cafe early Monday morning (again, Eastern time), that was news worth cutting to. When police stormed the cafe not long after, apparently after Monis killed two hostages (reports on that are unclear at time of writing), that was also news worth going to live. The rest was just filler, and the news — especially 24-hour news channels — has enough of that.

We live in an era now where the entire Western world focuses exhaustively on one story at a time, for weeks on end, and then instantly moves on. This year, we’ve seen the missing Malaysian airlines jet, Ebola in America, the other Malaysian airliner disaster after Russian-backed rebels shot a passenger plane down, and the riots in Ferguson, to name a few. These were all stories that deserved attention, but not ceaseless, round-the-clock coverage. It doesn’t make for good journalism and probably doesn’t do the mental and emotional health of the viewers much good, either. The world isn’t nearly as dangerous a place as it can seem, else we’d have all crashed in our fever-ridden planes by now. Reality can be unpleasant enough without torquing it.

The sad truth is that lone-wolf terror attacks could easily be with us to stay for some time. As my colleague Jonathan Kay recently wrote here, the Western world has done an excellent job crushing the larger, more capable Islamist terror networks. That leaves small-scale attacks by individuals, who often self-radicalize, as the most probable threat. If the entire free world shuts down and turns on CNN every time some lunatic with a gun and an agenda commits an act of violence, we could soon have time for little else.

It’s a fine line between giving a story too much attention and not enough. There’ll always be room for disagreement on when that line is crossed. But no one in North America was ill served when the news networks broke away from live coverage of Sydney on Sunday night. Indeed, we should hope it was a precedent.

Police in Sydney have confirmed that the gunman who took hostages in a café in the city’s central business district is Man Haron Monis, a self-styled “Muslim cleric and peace activist.”

Monis, who was in a standoff with law enforcement at the café for 16 hours, was on bail after being charged with serving as an accessory to the murder his ex-wife last April. Another man named Amirah Droudis, who has worked with Monis, was charged with killing the woman. She was stabbed and set on fire in the stairwell of an apartment.

Monis has said the case is the result of a conspiracy against him by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

“This is not a criminal case. This is a political case,” he said after a court case in January where he also claimed to have been tortured while in police custody.

Police stormed the café early Tuesday morning (local time). Monis was killed along with at least one hostage.

A female hostage was shot in the leg, an official said, one of at least three people hospitalized for injuries and shock. At least two people were wheeled out of the cafe on stretchers and a weeping woman was helped out by police.

On his website, Monis, who uses the name “Sheikh Haron,” describes his anger over air strikes against the jihadist group Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The strikes have been carried out by a coalition that includes forces from both the US and Australia.

The standoff began at the Lindt Chocolat Cafe on Monday morning local time. A gunman took an unknown number of hostages while brandishing a sawed-off shotgun.

EPA/SERGIO DIONISOMonis bound in chains and holding an Australian flag outside Downing Centre Local Court after having been charged with seven counts of unlawfully using the postal service to menace November 10, 2009. Monis sent harassing letters to families of Australian soldiers.

While the gunman was inside the café, he made hostages display a black Islamic flag in the window. He also released videos describing himself as a member of ISIS and demanded to be given one of the group’s flags and a phone call with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

His ex-wife’s murder was not Monis’s first brush with the law. In April, he was arrested and charged with one count of sexual assault and two counts of indecent assault in conjunction with a 2002 incident where a woman who visited him for a “spiritual consultation” said she was sexually assaulted at his office.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Monis had placed advertisements in a local newspaper touting his expertise in “astrology, numerology, meditation, and black magic.” In October, Monis was given 40 additional charges stemming from his time as a spiritual healer. He was next due to appear in court on Feb. 27, 2015.

YouTubeMonis appearing in a YouTube video.

Monis also attracted the attention of authorities for a campaign he and Droudis mounted to send letters to the families of Australian soldiers who died in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2009. The Associated Press reported Monis was charged with “12 counts of using a postal service in an offensive way and one count of using a postal service in a harassing way” for the letters, which criticized Australia’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and compared the soldiers to Nazis.

In 2011, Australia’s highest court rejected Monis’s argument that the letters were protected under his right to free speech.

“Whilst at one level the letters are critical of the involvement of the Australian military in Afghanistan, they also refer to the deceased soldiers in a denigrating and derogatory fashion,” the judgment said.

He was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and “placed on a two-year good behaviour bond” for the letters, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. On his website, Monis posted an undated note vowing “the political ‘letter campaign’ will continue.”

In another statement released on his site in October, Monis claimed to be against violence.

“Islam is the religion of peace and a Muslim should be a peace activist. Islam is against oppression and any unfair violence. Islam is against terrorism. As I have repeatedly said earlier: ‘this pen is my gun and these words are my bullets, I fight by these weapons against oppression to promote peace,'” he wrote.

With files from National Post staff

16 Hours of Terror (continued)

9:28 p.m. A twitter user who goes by the name Sir Tessa offers to take the bus with anyone who wears religious attire and doesn’t feel safe alone. The hashtag #illridewithyou gathers momentum and by late Monday had been used more than 90,000 times.

2:06 a.m. A male hostage runs from the café, followed shortly thereafter by another group of hostages. Police then storm the café — reportedly from two directions — as stun grenades and gunfire can be heard.

Sydney’s hostage crisis ended early Tuesday as police stormed the cafe that had been under siege for about 17 hours, New South Wales Police said.

The gunman, named by Australian media as 50-year-old Iranian Man Haron Monis, wasn’t seen leaving the building after police opened fire on the cafe. A number of hostages ran out of the building a few minutes earlier.

The siege that began Monday morning triggered a lockdown in Sydney’s central business district, three months after Australia raised its terrorism alert to the highest level in a decade.

Paramedics converged on the site of the siege and assisted hostages from the cafe, television footage showed.

Joosep Martinson/Getty ImagesPolice in Sydney enter the Lindt Chocolate Cafe, Martin Place during a hostage standoff late Monday.

AP Photo/Rob GriffithArmed tactical response officers enter the building after shots were fired.

Joosep Martinson/Getty ImagesPolice as they surround the café.

Joosep Martinson/Getty ImagesMedics resuscitate a person outside the site of the siege in Sydney.

PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty ImagesAn injured hostage is carried away.

Don Arnold/Getty ImagesA hostage runs down Philip street after coming out of the Lindt Cafe.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty ImagesPolice escort a hostage with the help of a paramedic in Sydney.

AP Photo/Rob GriffithHostages run towards armed tactical response police as they run to freedom from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney Tuesday.

AP Photo/Rob GriffithA blood soaked stretcher is wheeled to an ambulance after shots were fired during the standoff.

Rob Griffith / The Associated PressAn armed tactical response police officer grabs a hostage as she runs to flee from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney Monday.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty ImagesA female hostage stands by the front entrance of the cafe as she turns the lights off in the Sydney central business district on Monday.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesTwo hostages run to safety outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on Monday in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesArmed police are seen outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on Monday in Sydney.

The Sydney hostage crisis passed its 12th hour as police negotiators worked to free the remaining people held at gunpoint in a city-centre cafe.

Hours after five hostages fled the Lindt cafe in Martin Place, police won’t say how many are left in the building or disclose the motives of the gunman after night fell on Sydney. The armed man has forced his captives to display a black flag with Arabic lettering throughout the day.

“We are doing all we can to set you free,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said, using a televised evening news conference to address the hostages directly. “We will be looking after your safety as our number one priority.”

The holdup, which triggered a lockdown in the centre of Sydney, comes three months after Australia raised its terrorism alert to the highest level in a decade.

The earliest footage showed some hostages with their palms pressed against the cafe’s window, holding up the black flag. Officers in riot gear and armed with automatic weapons lay siege to the building, which is next to the Reserve Bank of Australia. Offices in the vicinity were locked down and the financial district was left largely empty.

Six hours into the crisis, three hostages ran from the cafe and two more emerged about an hour later. They all took shelter behind a line of police officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. Police have declined to say whether the people escaped or were released.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty ImagesTwo hostages (L) run for cover behind a policeman (R) during a hostage siege in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesTwo hostages run to safety outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on December 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesTwo hostages run to safety outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on Monday in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesA hostage runs to safety outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on December 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesTwo hostages run to safety outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on December 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesA hostage runs to safety outside the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on December 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty ImagesPolice gesture as a hostage (unseen) escapes from an emergency exit during a hostage siege in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014.

AP Photo/Rob Griffith)A hostage fleeing from a cafe under siege runs towards an armed tactical response police officer at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia, Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.

SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty ImagesA hostage runs towards police from a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on Dec. 15, 2014. Five people ran out of a Sydney cafe where a gunman has taken hostages and displayed an Islamic flag against the window, witnesses and police said.

SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty ImagesOne of the hostages runs towards police from a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014.

AP Photo/Rob Griffith)A hostage runs to armed tactical response police officers for safety after she escaped from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia, Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.

AP Photo/Rob GriffithA hostage runs to armed tactical response police officers for safety after she escaped from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia, Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.

AP Photo/Rob Griffith)A hostage runs to armed tactical response police officers for safety after she escaped from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia, Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.

AP Photo/Rob GriffithArmed tactical response police personnel stand watch into the evening near a cafe under siege by a gunman at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia, Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty ImagesA female hostage stands by the front entrance of the cafe as she turns the lights off in the Sydney central business district on Monday.

AP Photo/Channel 7 via AP VideoThis image taken from video shows people holding up what appeared to be a black flag with white Arabic writing on it, inside a cafe in Sydney, Australia Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.

AP Photo/Channel This image taken from video shows people holding up hands inside a cafe in Sydney, Australia Monday, Dec. 15, 2014.

AFP PHOTO / CHANNEL SEVENThis screengrab taken from Australian Channel Seven shows the suspected gunman inside a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014. A gunman was holding terrified hostages inside a Sydney cafe December 15 with an Islamic flag displayed at the window, triggering a lockdown in an area home to government and corporate headquarters.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesPolice confer on Philip St near the Lindt Cafe, Martin Place on December 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesAn armed policeman is seen in Phillip St on December 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty ImagesPolice walk through Martin Place as spectators look on during a hostage siege in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014.

PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty ImagesArmed police are seen outside a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on Dec. 15, 2014.

PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty ImagesPolice close a street where a cafe is being used to hold hostages in the central business district of Sydney on Dec. 15, 2014.

Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesFiremen are seen at a barricade on Castlereigh Street on Dec. 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople look on as events unfold on a street where a cafe is being used to hold hostages in the central business district of Sydney on Dec. 15, 2014.

Joosep Martinson/Getty ImagesCatherine Burn, Deputy Commissioner of the Specialist Operations speaks to the media in relation to the Sydney hostage incident at Sydney Police Centre on December 15, 2014 in Sydney, Australia.

AP Photo/Xinhua, Xu HaijingSee, it's not cold in here, is it?

SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty ImagesAn armed policeman is seen outside a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on Dec. 15, 2014.

SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty ImagesArmed police evacuates office staff next to a cafe in the central business district of Sydney on Dec. 15, 2014.

SYDNEY, Australia — Two young boys playing on a Sydney beach on Sunday found an infant’s body buried in the sand, police said, one week after a newborn baby was discovered alive at the bottom of a drain in the city’s suburbs.

The boys, ages 6 and 7, discovered the infant’s naked body while digging in the sand at Sydney’s popular Maroubra beach on Sunday morning, New South Wales state police Inspector Andrew Holland said.

The body was too decomposed for officials to immediately determine the baby’s age, gender or cause of death, Holland said, adding that it appeared to be “a very small infant.” An autopsy will be performed.

Rick Rycroft / The Associated PressPeople walk and rest on Maroubra Beach in Sydney on near where a body of a baby was discovered in the sand.

The discovery comes one week after a group of cyclists rescued an infant whose cries they heard coming from the bottom of a roadside drain in a Sydney suburb. Police said the baby had spent five days in the drain. The baby’s mother has been charged with attempted murder.

Officials on Sunday said they were hunting through hospital records to try and find the parents of the baby buried at the beach. The boys who discovered the infant were receiving counselling.

“Police are concerned about the welfare of the mother involved and hope she sought medical assistance,” Holland told reporters.

Writer Maryam Siddiqi is taking almost seven months holiday to travel to 20 countries on four continents, documenting the journey as she goes. See her mapped route here.

This visit was my first to Sydney, and probably my last for a while — it’s not exactly a quick plan ride from Toronto, my home — so, naturally, I wanted to take in the big sights without getting lost in the crowds of tourists doing the very same thing. Granted, it’s still winter in Australia, so those crowds aren’t nearly as thick as I’m sure they are in the hazy days of summer. Still, Sydney’s blue skies and highs of 20 C were drastically different than the winter weather I encountered in Melbourne, and therefore much more friendly to sight seekers.

The city’s most iconic building has to be the Sydney Opera House, I’m not sure there’s even a close second. It’s a wonderous thing to behold from the outside, but there are many stories to be told from inside, a number of which I learned on an early-morning backstage tour. The access is accurately described as all areas, we even stopped in on Joan Baez’s dressing room, who was performing that night, and were invited to tickle the ivories of the Steinway that resides in the room. We heard stories of Luciano Pavarotti being gravely offended by purple carpeting at the entrance to one theatre and saw signs warning orchestra members to keep chatting to a minimum as mics are live. One wonders what was said to prompt the notice.

I got another view of the Opera House from the waters of Sydney Harbour, but not on a ferry nor on a tour boat. It was on an America’s Cup yacht, during a Wednesday afternoon race with a team from Sailing Sydney. The company has a boat that participates in the weekly races organized by local sailing clubs, and guests are invited, well, more accurately required, to assist the fun, competitive crew cross the finish line —hopefully in first place. There is leisure time to be had though, during which you can get a view from the water of the city’s posh real estate. If you have $20-million to spare, Sydney has a few waterside properties you may find appealing.

Of course, I couldn’t go to Sydney and not go to a beach or few, so sauntered along the coastal walk, covering Bronte to Bondi beach. I could handily count the number of people on the beaches and in the water (very, very few), so to get a glimpse of what the scene is really like I headed to Aquabumps Gallery (151 Curlewis St., Bondi Beach), the home of photographer Eugene Tan’s colourful, wonderous water-centric work, which before a gallery was a daily email newsletter (he still distributes the newsletter). Name an aspect of surf life and Tan’s photographed it multiple times around the world, but there’s a focus on Bondi and its people. For another take on the beach scene, I headed for a seafood lunch at Icebergs, which is perched alongside the coast walk overlooking the beach and ocean. It is a different sort of beach scene here, one literally above it all, and one that offers a fantastic vantage point of beach life without getting sand in everything.

Maryam SiddiqiMy Sydney Detour's ride at a rest stop in Redfern.

To understand the city on a broader scope I did the opposite of a hop on-hop off tour and stepped into a 1964 Holden, an Australian automobile (actually, the only Australian automobile), with Richard Graham of My Sydney Detour. Given that his car can sit a maximum of five, including Graham behind the wheel, this can only be described as an intimate tour of the city — “from ghetto to glamour,” he explained — as he began a history of Sydney in Redfern, once a rundown part of the city and home to a growing population of Aboriginals. About 10 years ago, the city decided to do something about the neighbourhood’s reputation as a hub for heroin and alcohol and the process of gentrification began, with property being sold at affordable prices. Those days are over — small houses go for A$800,000 — and the neighbourhood’s cleaned up considerably, but it’s by no means pristine and thanks to that it’s retained much of its low-key charm. Graham contrasted this with posh neighbourhoods like Waverley and hideaways such as Parsley Bay Reserve — places no tourist would ever know about without the aid of a local.

To complement this, I took in the Museum of Sydney’s 52 Suburbs Around the World exhibit featuring photographer Louise Hawson’s work as she and her eight-year-old daughter travelled around the world noting the differences from and similarities to cities in Australia.

And while this isn’t a twist on an icon, I did strap into a grey aviator-esque jumpsuit and climb the Harbour Bridge. Many travellers would scoff — just walk across the bridge, you’ll get the same view! — and usually I’d be one of them, but as I reached the highest point of the bridge, I realized this isn’t about the view. It’s about the climb, about having eight lanes of traffic beneath your feet and the wind trying to have its way with you. I was standing on top of a bridge! In Sydney, Australia! Sometimes the tried-and-true tourist trail pays off.

Iconic eats with a twistI had some memorable meals in Sydney off the tourist trail:

Kitchen By Mike (1/85 Dunning Ave., Roseberry) Opened 18 months ago inside the warehouse space for Australian furniture design company Koskela, chef Mike McEnearney egalitarian canteen is focused on accessible food. The menu is comprised of local, seasonal, incredibly fresh food made in-house (including 18 wood-fired sourdough loves per day). Preserves and jams are also available for purchase, and Koskela is worth a post-lunch browse for a made-in-Australia unique souvenir.

Chiswick (65 Ocean St., Woollahra) Set in a beautiful park off busy Ocean Street, the classy Chiswick is fine dining without the attitude. Chef Matt Moran’s kitchen garden provides much of the produce and you can taste the freshness in the dishes. An ideal place for a distinguished meal out.

The Apollo (44 Macleay St., Potts Point) A busy Greek restaurant in a trendy neighbourhood — the locals know they have it good. The menu is meant for sharing, and dishes are rich so you’ll be glad you did. This is the best Greek food I’ve ever eaten. Don’t overlook their cocktail menu, it’s hard to drink just one Figs and Phoenicians (Metaxa 5 Star rum, fig jam, apple and candied rosemary).

SYDNEY, Australia — Authorities were conducting an air and marine search Thursday off Australia’s east coast for two cruise passengers who were believed to have fallen overboard the night before.

The couple from New South Wales were discovered missing Thursday morning after the Carnival Spirit docked at Sydney’s Circular Quay, at the end of a 10-day journey, said New South Wales state Police Superintendent Mark Hutchings.

He said surveillance camera footage showed that the couple — a 30-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman — fell from the ship’s mid deck Wednesday night, when the ship was about 120 kilometres off the coast of Forster, a city 300 kilometres north of Sydney.

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“This is a tragic event at the moment, but we’re holding out hope we might be able to find these people alive,” Hutchings told reporters.

Investigators were having the video enhanced in a bid to determine whether the couple had jumped or had fallen by accident, Hutchings said.

No life preservers were missing from the ship, he said. A missing life preserver might have indicated that one of the missing passengers had attempted a rescue.

Jo Meehan, spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is co-ordinating the search, said an airplane, a helicopter and police boats were searching a 1,000-square-kilometre area of sea.

The couple had been among 2,680 passengers on a South Pacific cruise. They were discovered missing as passengers disembarked, said Peter Taylor, spokesman for the ship’s operator, Carnival Cruise Lines.

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty ImagesTwo police officers check for fingerprints on the balcony of the cabin of two passengers who fell overboard from the cuise ship Carnival Spirit as it returned to Sydney from a Pacific cruise, on May 9, 2013.

“The guests in question were travelling with family and friends, and initial reports indicate that the couple was last seen onboard the vessel last night,” Taylor said in a statement Thursday.

“The ship immediately initiated standard missing person procedures, including a full search of the vessel, as per protocol,” he said.

Police said in a statement there were alerted about two hours after the ship docked.

Carnival Cruise Lines is a subsidiary of Miami-based Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise operator.

The ship immediately initiated standard missing person procedures, including a full search of the vessel, as per protocol

Carnival Corp. has been plagued by a series of high-profile problems in recent years. Last year, the Costa Concordia ran aground off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people. Also last year, the Costa Allegra caught fire and lost power in the Indian Ocean, leaving passengers without working toilets, running water or air conditioning for three days. Costa is a division of Carnival Corp.

In February, passengers aboard the Carnival Triumph spent five days without power in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine-room fire disabled the vessel. Those on board complained of squalid conditions, including overflowing toilets and food shortages.

SuppliedPolice released this image of Matthew Allen, 18, who disappeared from the Westleigh area in the Australian outback in November, 2012

An 18-year-old man has astonished emergency personnel by surviving for almost nine weeks in dense Australian bush during a record-breaking heatwave.

Matthew Allen, who has been missing from his home since November 27, was found covered in leeches, bites from mosquitoes and gangrene was affecting his feet and legs. Police said he had lost almost 84lbs (38kgs) — about half his body weight.

“He was in such a poor state,” Acting Det.-Insp. Glyn Baker told the Sydney Morning Herald. “He was completely exhausted, completely dehydrated, suffered significant weight loss, somewhere up to 50%. He was suffering from partial blindness and he had leeches all over him.”

Mr. Allen disappeared from his home in Westleigh, north of Sydney, without his phone or extra clothing. Some reports said he may have set out on a survival mission, although The Daily Telegraph reported that Mr. Allen, who has mental health issues, wanted to run away from home.

“Hikers often walk along tracks in the area and we think he might have stayed hidden from them,” Mr Baker said.

“He was not living under any shelter and was exposed to the full conditions since reported being missing.”

In that time, Sydney temperatures have hit more than 45C.

Mr. Allen was found only two kilometres away from his home, but the area where he was discovered is dense bush.

Mr. Allen, an accountancy student, was able to tell rescuers he survived by drinking water from a creek that was almost dry. He may also have eaten some fish and frogs.

He was found by two experienced bushwalkers on Saturday afternoon as they took a shortcut home. Although he was only 200 metres from the backs of homes, the bush was so dense that Mr. Allen had to be taken out by helicopter.

Rescue officials said they were amazed he survived for so long.

“The common rule of thumb in our industry is you can live for three minutes without air, three hours without shelter in extreme environments, three days without water and, depending on who you talk to, three weeks without food,” Glen Nash, operations director for the Australian School of Mountaineering told The Australian newspaper.

“Some people would say three months even. It’s OK to have the water, but the human body needs minerals and salts and if you don’t get those other elements you’re going to be pretty sick. You’re going to potentially even be dead.”

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Detective Senior Constable Ben Wrigley told the Australian Associated Press, “Anyone who is missing for that length of time in those kind of conditions — you wouldn’t expect to see them again.

“I was amazed and very happy that everything turned out they way that it happened. I couldn’t believe it.”

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/teen-survives-in-australian-bush-for-nine-weeks-emerging-half-blind-covered-in-leeches-and-84lbs-lighter/feed3stdPolice released this image of Matthew Allen, 18, who disappeared from the Westleigh area in the Australian outback in November, 2012SuppliedFO0129-AUSTRALIAPush reset button, smash status quo: AFN chiefhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/push-reset-button-smash-status-quo-afn-chief
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/push-reset-button-smash-status-quo-afn-chief#commentsSat, 15 Oct 2011 21:07:04 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=100352

Shawn Atleo’s hair is short and neat, he carries a BlackBerry, and he wears dress shirts. He is conciliatory rather than combative. He does not think he should have to choose between an economic agenda and advancing First Nations treaty rights. The current national chief of the Assembly of First Nations is not like those who held the title before him.

When he was a young boy, his grandmother had urged him to become educated and comfortable interacting with the broader Canadian society. She also told him the value of being cemented in his identity.

On June 11, 2008, he asked her to stand beside him in the House of Commons for perhaps the key moment in modern First Nations-Crown relations — as Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for the Indian residential school system.

“Grandson,” she told him, “they are beginning to see us.”

The 44-year-old today holds a master’s degree in education and global change from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. Three years ago, he became chancellor of Vancouver Island University, making him the first aboriginal chancellor in British Columbia’s history. He has a home with his wife, Nancy, in Nanaimo, B.C., but he finds time to visit his modest dwelling in his ancestral community of Ahousaht, where he is the hereditary chief.

Chief Atleo was among the first generation not to attend residential schools, although his father told him stories of seeing fellow five-year-old students have their tongues pricked for speaking their native language. Still, Chief Atleo is not one for the blame game. He avoids pointing fingers, focused instead on his vision of healing the rift between First Nations and the government.

He wants nothing less than a return to spirit of the original 400-year-old treaties, which speak to a shared partnership and mutual respect. He wants more dialogue, less red tape, and new fiscal arrangements that give First Nations more autonomy and more responsibility. He wants to get rid of the Indian Act, and swap the federal aboriginal affairs department in favour two new entities — one to focus on the relationship with the Crown and the other to deliver programs. The time, he said, is now.

“I believe this could be the moment to hit an important reset button in the (First Nations-Crown) relationship,” Chief Atleo said in an interview this week. “It’s time to smash the status quo because the idea of tinkering at the margins has us slipping backwards.”

Chief Atleo was elected in 2009 as the contest’s youngest candidate, hailed as a generational bridge to First Nations Canadians, half of whom are under the age of 25. The father-of-two ran on an education platform, and has spent much of the past couple years collaborating with Mr. Harper’s Conservative government to improve on-reserve education.

Earlier this year, the pair adopted the Canada First Nations Joint Action Plan, which includes a traveling education panel aimed at combatting a stark reality: Upwards of 60% of the roughly 110,000 students in hundreds of on-reserve schools across the country will fail to complete high school, and fewer than 30,000 of Canada’s million aboriginals have university degrees.

But Chief Atleo is optimistic, and said Mr. Harper has sent clear signals that Ottawa is continuing to “see” First Nations: Mr. Harper’s government reversed its earlier position and endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; he has agreed to meet collectively for the first time with First Nations leaders later this year; he brought First Nations living on reserves under the umbrella of the Canadian Human Rights Act for the first time; he agreed to establish a specific claims tribunal to resolve land disputes; and he partnered to launch the historic joint action plan to improve life on reserves.

“I believe in my heart that Mr. Harper has, in his own heart, recognized the important moment at which we have arrived,” Chief Atleo said. “But make no mistake, resetting the relationship requires leadership — it requires somebody like the prime minister. We’re both fathers, we both have kids, and we both want the best for our kids.”

Chief Atleo, father to Tyson and Tara, may have run as the education candidate, but he has emerged also as an economic voice. He has worked hard to appeal to the hearts and minds of business leaders, philanthropists and even Mr. Harper. He speaks in a language those stakeholders understand.

“If we were to unleash the human potential of First Nations, we’re talking about $400 billion in additional economic output in one generation as well as savings in government expenditures to the tune of $115 billion,” Chief Atleo said. “We can quantify the cost of a relationship that’s gone awry.”

In speaking at the conference of Philanthropic Foundations Canada in Toronto last week, he became the first national chief to address the philanthropic community at such a level. Chief Atleo has also secured partnerships within the community, including one with television star Mike Holmes, who will help build houses in First Nations communities.

“The philanthropic community is stepping forward and saying, ‘These conditions may not have been created by us, but we share in a concern for the plight of our neighbour,’” Chief Atleo said. “That signals to the country and the government that it’s time for a significant shift. Perhaps we’re at a collective breaking point.”

Chief Atleo is not always business-friendly. He stood up against massive mining projects such as the Prosperity Mine in his home province, which is slated to spur job growth across at least six First Nations communities.

“It’s not about being supportive of development at any and all costs,” he said, citing the environmental impact.

Economic development is also stifled by the 1876 Indian Act, which gives Ottawa legislative jurisdiction over Indian reserves. Chief Atleo would see the Indian Act repealed, and seeks greater autonomy for the more than 600 bands he represents.

That desire fuels his opposition to a recently introduced federal bill that would define property rights for aboriginal women who divorce. It is just another example of Ottawa’s lingering “we-know-best” legislative approach.

Chief Atleo is the first national leader from B.C. in more than three decades, and while he must balance the regional divide, he must also contend with tempers. Several band chiefs opted out of the education panel this summer, claiming their leader had been co-opted by the Conservative government.

“There’s a long history of mistrust with governments when it comes to the chances of real change occurring,” Chief Atleo said. “But the apology in 2008 triggered the idea that we’re entering an era of reconciliation. It’s what we do with this era that will be absolutely critical.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/push-reset-button-smash-status-quo-afn-chief/feed12stdNational Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo would like a return to the spirit of 400-year-old treaties.Five things we now know about the increasingly strange Australian 'collar bomb' casehttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/five-things-we-now-know-about-the-increasingly-strange-australian-collar-bomb-case
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It took the bomb disposal team 10 hours to realize that the collar bomb was a very elaborate fake.

A two-page, handwritten letter left with Ms. Pulver was signed by a sinister fictional character, Dirk Struan, a 19th-century Scottish businessman in James Clavell’s 1966 novel Tai-Pan.

The note said the bomb would be detonated if police were contacted, and instructed Ms. Pulver to contact the perpetrator over the internet. The letter is now the most crucial piece of evidence the police have to work with, along with a USB stick removed from the fake bomb.

Police believe that the crime was most likely committed by an amateur. Former Scotland Yard counter-terrorism head, Nick O’Brien, said, “It’s Hollywood, or CSI, or 24. It’s very much like it’s there to garner publicity rather than a serious attempt. You’d have to say perhaps a serious criminal gang wouldn’t have operated like this because it’s got this whole bizarre feeling to it.” Classmates of Ms. Pulver’s also made it clear that she was well-liked and that she would not have been the target of a fellow student.

Police are still treating the situation as attempted extortion, but there were no requests for money, even though the Pulver family is one of the wealthiest in Sydney. (Mr. Pulver is the CEO of a software company, with Google and Microsoft being two of its notable customers.)

SYDNEY — A young Australian woman was freed from a suspected bomb collared around her neck early on Thursday after 10 hours of drama that lasted past midnight and captivated the nation with police saying they were still investigating the incident.

The 18-year-old had been trapped for hours in a house in Mosmon, one of Sydney’s most exclusive neighbourhoods, in what media speculated was an extortion plot.

“We have secured the release of the young lady. She is safe and sound, she is being reunited with her parents as we speak. Our investigation of the crime scene will now begin in earnest,” New South Wales assistant police commissioner Mark Murdoch told reporters.

The police said they were dealing with a “very elaborate, very sophisticated device” which they had not been able to confirm as an explosive.

He said the young woman had interaction with the person the police believed to be responsible for the scare, but could not confirm a ransom note had been left at the scene, as media had reported.

“You’d hardly think that someone would go to this much trouble if there wasn’t a motive behind it. What that motive is, as I’ve indicated, we are still not aware,” Murdoch said.

Police consulted with several Australian agencies as well as the British military to release the woman, he said, and bomb experts were familiar with the type of device used.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/sydney-bomb-squad-works-to-defuse-suspicious-device-reportedly-strapped-to-teen/feed1stdPolice wait outside at the scene of Mosman home where an 18-year old girl is believed to have had a bomb strapped to her earlier today, on August 3, 2011 in Mosman, AustraliaMap: The world’s most — and least — livable citieshttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/map-the-worlds-most-and-least-livable-cities
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Three muggers got much more than they bargained for in Sydney, Australia when a group of ninjas spotted the robbery and rushed to the aid of the victim.

The Times of London reports a 27-year-old German medical student was on a late-night train when three young men approached him and demanded his wallet. He refused and got off, ending up in a dimly lit alley, which just happened to be by a ninjutsu marital arts school.

Class was in session and a student noticed what was going on outside. He alerted the school’s sensei, black belt Kaylan Soto.

Reports the Times:

“He’s called out to me, ‘Sensei, someone’s getting mugged on the road outside!'” said Mr Soto.”We looked around to see what was happening and there were three blokes on this guy just kicking him and punching him in the head.

“We started running at them, yelling and everything. These guys have turned around and seen five ninjas in black ninja uniforms running towards them. They just bolted,” he said.

“You should have seen their faces when they saw us in ninja gear coming towards them. I’ve never seen guys running that fast. They should have been in the Olympics – they would have won gold,” he added.

Police apprehended two of the suspects and charged them with robbery. They are still looking for the third.